Sunday, March 6, 2016

Coconut Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache


I've baked every week for over a year now, and I have my rules about what to do with the resulting onslaught of calorie-laden delights.  Rule 1:  I get to have one piece of everything I bake.  Rule 2:  Unless it's something that won't severely tempt me to eat more, I get it out of the house.  If it's just normally tempting, I tell Jim he can eat all the rest of it, which is almost as good as getting it out of the house because I've already promised it to him.  (And may I just add that despite this routine, and despite the fact that I exercise more than Jim does, his #1 weight complaint is that he loses weight without trying.  As you may imagine, I am not very sympathetic with this "Why do I stay thin?" lament.)  Thank you, I feel better now.
Anyway, I ate two of these cupcakes.  That's how much I like them.


This coconut oil isn't the kind that Rose recommends, but I got it at a ritzy baking store, and it was very expensive for this tiny amount, and it smells like real coconut, not coconut room freshener.


Organic coconut milk, which also smells like coconut.  My daughters laugh at my penchant for buying anything labeled organic.  My younger daughter claims that her children can tell the difference between organic and ordinary food, and they don't like organic.  I have my own opinions about this, which I don't share.


When I saw the instruction to let the muffins stand in the muffin tin for 20 minutes to assure a rounded top, I wondered what would happen if I didn't.  But I did, and the muffins were already poured into the tin, so there was no chance to experiment.  Perhaps these are a little too rounded, since they look more like a hillock than a cupcake.

Image result for hillock
This is a hillock.

I had forgotten that Rose's milk chocolate ganache is made of a mix of dark and white chocolate, which somehow tastes more chocolatey than it would if it were made just of milk chocolate.  Even after sitting at room temperature for three hours, it was still too liquid to use as icing, so I put it in the refrigerator and checked every 15 minutes.


Meanwhile, I toasted the coconut, which made it very delicious.  Jim claims not to like coconut, but he liked these cupcakes too.  He doesn't like the chewy texture, but toasted coconut has a crispy texture, so there was nothing to dislike.


I'm usually not very good at frosting and decorating because that requires more than just following directions and weighing ingredients, but these were very easy to frost.


And the coconut sprinkled so nicely over the ganache that they all looked very sweet, and less like hillocks.  I still have some leftover ganache in the refrigerator and I also have a small baggie of leftover toasted coconut.  I just had the idea to shape the ganache into little balls and roll them in the coconut.  If they taste as good as I think they will, I may have to eat two of them.

10 comments:

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  2. Nice post Marie, and I know what you mean, I give all but one to my grandchildren, I also don't like the chewy texture of coconut, your cupcakes look big then Mine. ..lol... nice write up.

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  3. Chocolate coconut truffles! So is a hillock like what was in the movie The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain? Your cupcakes look quite nice. My kids would faint if I ever kept my opinion about organic food to myself. They would be quite jealous of your kids' good fortune.

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  4. Marie, I also have a penchant for organic anything. Your cupcakes looks perfect. I think you've dolled the ganache on perfectly.

    I have recently found a couple of groups of folks who I can give away my baking to, which is really awesome so I know how you feel. Though my rule is a bit less strict - I would eat 1-2 slices and sometimes 4 (as is the case of these cupcakes).

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  5. My older daughter ate these cupcakes two at a time. The younger one had no interest in the cupcakes, but demolished the leftover toasted coconut.

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  7. Organic, I don't care one way or another, but anything coconut has my heart. Definitely wouldn't have been able to resist these babies. Will make them eventually, when I have a lot of people to feed so I'm not tempted to eat them all myself.

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  8. So funny. It sounds like your daughters have inherited your sense of humour. I have the opposite problem to Jim and also have to get baked goods out of the house asap.

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  9. And on the subject of organic, I like the idea but the evidence until recently was that there was no difference in nutrition. However I heard of a new study that found that organic vegetables actually were more nutritious (I can't remember the details but I think it was the amount of vitamins and other good stuff they contain). Now I'm thinking it could be worth paying the higher prices for organic.

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  10. i was in the airport on the way to MN to visit YOU when i read this delightful report! how i wish i had taken you up on the offer of a frozen one before we left! i haven't had them for a long time and hard to find an excuse to make something i've already "perfected" when there are so many new things to try.

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